Passing grades and retention through to degree are essential to success in higher education, but these factors are too often mistaken for ends in themselves. A high-performing student environment has provided teachers and researchers at Emory University with a space to think critically about what success means, and about the extent to which data might inform the design of successful learning environments. This presentation will (1) discuss some of the unique challenges encountered by Emory University during its 2013-2014 Blackboard Analytics pilot, (2) describe several provisional insights gained from exploratory data mining, and (3) outline how Emory’s pilot experience has informed support of learning analytics on campus.